<Begin Segment 18>

MA: And you told me earlier that you attended college.

GY: Yeah.

MA: Did you go from your railroad job to entering college?

GY: 1943, since I was a year in Japan back in 1929 and 1930, and then I had a lot of problems physically, a ear operation, three month, what they call a mastoid operation, three month on one side, three month on the other side, and that kept me out of grade school at that point. But anyway, 1943 I was classified 1-A.

MA: What is, what is that? 1-A?

GY: 1-A for entry into the military. The best classification you could get for becoming a soldier. And then that 1-A after a while was changed to 4-C. 4-C meaning "enemy alien." My dad was an "enemy alien" because being an alien, the considered him an enemy. But to have me, an American-born citizen with a 4-C designation, you know, that was very offensive, real offensive. I really felt betrayed that here I am, an American citizen, losing all my rights, and then you call me an "enemy alien." That really offended me. At that point, I wrote to Major General John Hershey, a commandant of the military then, Commandant of inductees or volunteers, something like that, then. And I wrote to him I wanted to become a marine. But says, "Are you kidding? You're a Japanese. We don't take Japanese into the marines." And I says, "How about the navy?" I didn't want to be lumped into a Japanese organization. However, the more I think about it at that period, it would have been better befitting to be one Japanese unit.

MA: You mean into one unit?

GY: Oh, yeah.

MA: Why, why didn't you initially want to be in a...

GY: Well, I thought they were just trying to kill us off. And well, I don't know, the way the thing was going, you knew they didn't have very high regard for the Japanese, irregardless of how well you did in the military. And I got a nice letter back from Major General Hershey that, "We aren't accepting," people of my ancestry into the marines or the navy.

MA: Sorry, was this after you had been classified 4-C?

GY: Yeah, 4-C. And anyway, they put it into my records, and no sooner did I reply back, I was drafted. I didn't volunteer, I was drafted.

MA: So how did you feel? I mean --

GY: Oh, I was okay.

MA: -- for so long you were trying to get into the military and they considered you an "enemy alien," then suddenly they draft you.

GY: Yeah, well, that's because I showed, instead of showing espionage or subversive type of thing, I assume, because of my willingness to go into the marines, I would have. I thought I would make a darn good marine or sailor. But anyway, they didn't so I went into the army, military.

MA: And what year was that? Was that about '44?

GY: That was 1944.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.